Peugeot Pushing EVs

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Who killed the EV? Well, it's beginning to look like reports of the death of the battery car were, to paraphrase Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.

As TheCarConnection noted in an exclusive April report, Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn has declared the electric vehicle his company's No. 1 priority, with plans to launch an American version by the beginning of the next decade. (The quirky battery car concept, Pivo 2, is shown above.)

Now the trans-Pacific automaker's French rival, PSA Peugeot-Citroen SA, is getting into the game. PSA acknowledges it is in discussions with another, unnamed automaker aimed at creating a joint venture that would lead to the development of new electric vehicle technology.

The French company has actually been one of the few true believers in EVs, which it manufactured from 1995 to 2005. PSA sold about 10,000 of them before it was ordered to stop producing outdated and environmentally risky nickel-cadmium batteries.

Like the rest of the industry, Peugeot-Citroen is expected to adopt newer, high-power lithium-ion batteries for future EV programs.